"Very essential," replied Quinn.
Three weeks and more in the nether kingdoms had whitened us considerably, but the professor's face was now a sickly grayish color.
"Then I will have it taken back to the house," said the king.
He gave orders to that end at once, and the cart was laid hold of and drawn out of the square and down the street, Olox accompanying it.
"I had no idea," the king drummed on his word-box, "that there were any people in the solar system with so much wealth and so little power with which to guard it. I've got the other three kingdoms of Njambai pretty well under my thumb, and the regent I leave behind to boss things will have an easy time of it. Quite possibly I may conclude not to come back to Njambai. This other star has natural advantages which we do not seem to have here, and may prove a more comfortable place in which to live."
Professor Quinn was shivering, like a man with an ague. He proceeded to use his talk-machine, and the words shook under his unsteady fingers.
"What you are thinking of, your majesty," ran the professor's words, "is only the wildest of dreams."
"I have had dreams before, and wild ones," the king's word-box rattled off complacently, "and I have made them come true. It shall be the same with this. I am a conqueror, and I come of a line of conquerors."
"There are millions upon millions of people on our planet," persisted the professor, despairingly. "They could hurl these countless numbers against you faster than you could slay them with your zetbais."
Key 7 of the royal word-box gave a screech of contempt.